Sonic Uncovers Banning And Realizes Anime Spoilers Hurt Intricate Ideas is... a mouthful. I mean, it's the sequel to SUGOI, a community project that ended up way more successful than I had ever anticipated! So I thought, why not make a sequel? Turns out, this also became more successful than I had ever anticipated! If you missed out last time, here's what went down: I gave everyone a month to make a level, tied them together with a hub level and a final boss, and released it! It's the result's a mod by the community, for the community! None of this would've been possible without the massive contributions I recieved. While the basic format is the same as last time, I tried to do some extra stuff to make this one unique in its own ways.

Let's see what the back of the box says:

48 fully featured levels, with 7 being unique Emerald Stages!

A shop system to give you helpful items in tough levels!

An all new Marathon Mode for speed runs!

Features work from over 60 different contributors!

The exciting continuation of the plot!

More gosh dang anime.

Spoiler: The Manual (WARNING: Minor spoilers)

STARTING UP:

Before you can play SUBARASHII, you will need the parent game, Sonic Robo Blast 2. You can find the download over at www.srb2.org. It is highly recommended you have an understanding of the original game before trying SUBARASHII. Afterwards, you can boot up SUBARASHII like any other SRB2 add-on.

Opening the included .bat file, labeled "Play SUBARASHII". This method is the most recommended. If you have SRB2PlusC, then you may use "Play SUBARASHII (PlusC)" for IO save file support.

Using the addfile console command. Open up the console, and enter in "addfile scr_subarashii_v1.wad". It is highly recommended you do so at the title screen, and not in-game.

Using the command line. Running the game with the parameter "-file scr_subarashii_v1.wad" will load SUBARASHII.

Using a third-party launcher program. Instructions and support on using these programs should be provided by creator of the program used.

PROLOGUE:

here we last left off in SUGOI, Sonic the Hedgehog found all of the hidden Chaos Emeralds, and got through the treacherous Garanz Site Act 16. However, after doing so he ran into Dr. Eggman, and his latest invention: Anime Eyes Sonic. Sonic was merged with Anime Eyes Sonic, becoming an all-knowing weeaboo of infinite power, as Knuckles the Echidna makes a last second escape before he too was claimed.

Now, Eggman has befriended his previous arch-nemesis, hanging out and discussing anime and manga with Anime Eyes Sonic all day long. However, this newfound friendship doesn't last for very long, when Eggman asks him who is the best girl. Anime Eyes Sonic answers poorly, which sends the doctor into a fit of rage! Proclaiming that Anime Eyes Sonic had failed him, Eggman knocks the anime out of Sonic and sends him into the Shadow Realm.

In the Shadow Realm, Sonic meets up with a gang of hundreds of Shadow the Hedgehogs in their house. They team up to find Hypermysteriousshadonic123311, the only being that is powerful enough to stop Eggman's fiendish plan to destroy Pueblo City!

HOW TO PLAY:

SUBARASHII shares most of the controls and its mechanics from its parent game that will not be covered here. However, there are a few key differences.

EMERALD TOKENS:

The emerald tokens have changed from normal SRB2. Instead of being sent to the next special stage at the end of a level, they will be added to your Emerald Token counter. You can spend these in the hub level, either in the shop or to enter Emerald Stages.

HUB:

Starting a new game will bring you to Joestar Manor, the hub level of the game. Here, you can select a level, buy items, or enter an emerald stage.

SELECTING A LEVEL:

Simply hop into a painting representing the desired level in the hub, and you'll be met with the voting screen. Here, the level name and author will be displayed. Simply press the Jump key to accept, or Spin to decline. If accepted, then you'll warp to the selected level. Otherwise, you'll be brought back to the entrance of the hub. In multiplayer, the majority's vote determines if it is successful or not. If the level is an emerald stage, the token cost will also be displayed.

PROGRESSION:

Each gate in the hub is blocked by a certain number of Emblems. There are various ways to get emblems. You will naturally get an Emblem by completing a level. You can also find Emblems hidden in most levels, and earn Emblems in Record Attack mode by achieving certain goals. Going for as many Emblems as you can in levels you enjoy will unlock gates quicker, while only completing stages can be much slower and more tedious. The ultimate goal is to unlock and complete the single level behind the Final Tower gate, but collecting as many Emblems as you can may net you extra unlockables and extra content. Due to the lack of emblems in multiplayer, progression is based on number of maps beaten instead.

BUYING ITEMS:

On the second floor in the right wing of the hub level is the shop. Step on the platform, and the shop interface will be brought up. This menu shows the currently available items, the Emerald Token cost and the description of the selected item, your currently held item, and your current number of collected Emerald Tokens. The Strafe Left/Right keys change which item for sale is selected, the Jump key buys the selected item, and Spin exits this menu.

EMERALD STAGES:

Emerald Stages work differently from the normal levels. In addition to the normal level completion emblem, they also give out a Chaos Emerald! However, it costs an Emerald Token to enter one each time. Losing any Emerald Stage will bring you back to the hub level. If you find that an Emerald Stage is giving you too much trouble, you can buy out Chaos Emeralds from the shop, but at a much more expensive price. Most Emerald Stages have a special gimmick or alternate control scheme, as well, which are documented here.

GREEN EMERALD: Greenflower Grove Zone 1

In this emerald stage, you play a recreation of Sonic 3D Blast. Defeat the enemies, collect all of the Flickies and bring them to the exit ring to get the Chaos Emerald.

PURPLE EMERALD: Tropical Island

A simple 2D level, but instead of rings protecting you from hits, you have a dedicated Energy meter. It depletes over time and when you get hit. Get to the end of the stage without draining your Energy to get this stage's Chaos Emerald.

BLUE EMERALD: A Minesweeper Field

The goal of Minesweeper is to uncover every safe tile and to place flags on all of the mine tiles. Pressing Spin uncovers the tile you're standing on, while Jump places a flag on the tile. On an uncovered tile, the number indicates how many mines are in the 8 tiles around it. By using the process of deduction, you can figure out which tiles to flag and which to dig.

CYAN EMERALD: Unknown Temple 1

Controls and plays like a normal level, but it has a timer. Press all of the switches and reach the end before time runs out to get the Chaos Emerald.

ORANGE EMERALD: Shade Mountain Zone

To complete this stage, you must fly a hang glider through the dark cavern. You can press up or down to fly in that direction, and hold Jump to accelerate. Every second, you will lose 2 rings. Fly through the Giant Rings to replenish your ring supply until you can reach the Chaos Emerald.

RED EMERALD: Songuri

Take to the skies in this shoot-em-up for the Chaos Emerald! Pressing Jump shoots a laser, while pressing Spin will shoot a rocket; lasers are weaker but faster, while rockets are stronger but slower. The colored target reticule shows what you'll shoot. Press and hold Custom Button 1 to dash, increasing your speed and canceling out your firing animation. Dashing through lasers and defeating enemies will fill up your Hyper meter. Once the Hyper meter has been filled, you can press Custom Button 2 to fire a hyper beam at the targeted enemy and gain a few seconds of invulnerability. Defeat the boss to get the Chaos Emerald.

WHITE EMERALD: Highly Responsive to Hedgehogs

The long awaited SRB2 adaptation of Touhou. You can move left and right, and press Jump to shoot. Tapping Spin when standing still waves your wand around to destroy bullets, while pressing it when moving does a slide. The goal is to knock the Yin-Yang Orb around the stage to flip all of the cards on the screen. You can knock the orb around by shooting it, hitting it with your wand, or sliding into it. Be careful, as touching the ball without hitting it back will kill you! Each screen has a timer; let it run out, and bullets will continuously rain down until you die or flip the remaining cards. Clear all of the screens to get the Chaos Emerald.

EXTRAS:

There is a path split that determines the ending of the game. A secret path will open in the final level when all 7 Chaos Emeralds are collected.

Emerald Practice unlocks after beating the game. You can attempt any Emerald Stage here freely without any consequences.

Marathon Mode unlocks after getting the secret ending. This lets you test how fast you can get through all of the levels in order. Displayed in the bottom-right of the screen is how long you've spent in Marathon Mode. After the credits, your final time will be displayed. Marathon Mode will persist, even if you return to the title screen, until you return to the hub level or quit the game.

Once Marathon Mode is unlocked, you can find the Music Test (as well as the rest of the secret levels) in the Gallery, on the second floor of the hub level. The Music Test menu shows the currently playing song, and information on the song you have selected. The Strafe Left/Right keys select a song, the Jump key plays it, and the Spin key leaves the menu.

IO save/load errors were being bypassed with sugoi_autosave on in v1.1, which caused Lua errors if anything at all wasn't just right. This has been fixed.

sugoi_shieldswap is now always disabled in Marathon Mode, like the rest of the gameplay-altering console variables.

A Lua warning about using sugoi_shieldswap in PlusC has been fixed.

The shop now has a very small input delay when you open it that lingers until you let go of buttons, to prevent people from buying things on accident.

A few new lines of Shadow dialogue were added, and a couple of existing ones were modified.

Access to the post-exit secret in Palace Peaks is prevented in Record Attack mode, and you can now beat the level when you go to it.

Roasted Ravine Zone 1 & 3's scripts have been more optimized. Hopefully this will make the lag less unbearable for some players.

The Cactus Shield should properly protect from a hit without spilling your rings now.

A C stack overflow that occured when getting hit by the Roasted Ravine 3's boss with a shield was fixed.

Other players' crosshairs in the secret boss have been made hidden.

The player health bars for the secret boss in splitscreen mode no longer overlap.

Some credits entries were updated to be more accurate.

Improved credits rendering in non-green OpenGL resolutions slightly; it now Sonic Forces rendering as if it were 320x200, regardless of actual resolution. Not perfect, there's still cutoff, but its less severe.

Replaced one of the title screen demos.

Removed HMS123311.

v1.1:

Added sugoi_autosave for PlusC users. This makes the game save/load your IO save automatically in the hub. Enabled by default; if you prefer the old method of manually saving with sugoi_save and sugoi_load, you can turn this off.

Added support for saving bought items in IO saves.

Steaming Towers Zone's fifth emblem hint was made more helpful, at the request of the author.

Tropical Island's sound effects are now restricted to only being heard by the player it comes from, preventing ear-bleed in multiplayer.

Fixed Tropical Island having issues over occasionally failing to give you the emerald if you were playing as Sonic & Tails.

Fixed the issue where the HUD message in Shade Mountain Zone that tells the player to hold Jump to go faster not appearing. I apologize profusely for whatever player experiences I might have ruined by messing that up.

The secret path was missing a few bug fixes that were supposed to be included in v1.0. This has been corrected.

Attempted to fix the infamous credits bug. I couldn't recreate this one no matter how hard I tried, so if it's still happens then WELP.

Fixed a few issues related to playing Marathon Mode online.

Fixed some minor shop item description typos.

Fixed IO saves incorrectly loading your saved Chaos Emeralds.

Added title screen demos.

v1.0:

Initial release.

Just like last time, please be considerate and refrain from posting end-game content outside of spoiler boxes. Thank you.

That is an awful, overly harsh approach to criticism. I get the idea of not liking some aspects of the mod, but outside of your "I was impressed" that's downright vitriolic without any hints of how to improve. It's just "This is bad and you should feel bad" with more words. Maybe you could mention some specific things you liked, and articulate why you don't like some stuff as opposed to abstractly raging about it?

I'm the kind of person who sees flaws far more easily than points of praise. When I see them, I don't hold back in pointing them out, in hopes that they can be fixed or learned from. Sometimes if a flaw annoys me enough, I'll fix it myself. To most people, pointing flaws so readily is seen as hostile, and it doesn't help when I point them out with the inflammatory tone I use when shit talking with friends. So, I've decided I'll rephrase and add a lot of detail to my criticisms, and I'll add several positive points.

Spoiler: Revised thoughts on the true final boss

The true final boss fight ended up not being fun, in my estimation, even though by all other measurements it should have been. The concept of the fight and the elements it is made of are not the problem. The radical shift in gameplay elements worked and there were no technical problems in the implementation, but the fight ended up being more about watching a health bar drain down far too slowly than the fight.

If anything, I am to blame for my negative feelings just because I got my hopes up way too high. My first thought of the whole fight was "holy shit Star Fox in SRB2 shut up and take my money". Perhaps my gaming knowledge is not as complete to know exactly what this is based on, but I did notice the edited pause screen, which was a very nice touch. The point is, the thought of Star Fox's gameplay was what was on my mind through the whole fight, especially 64's.
I'll admit right now that Star Fox 64 is not the best ever rail shooter, nor does a rail shooter have to be just like it to be good; however, it serves as an example of the style of gameplay working and being extremely fun.
With Star Fox 64, auto-aim is only applied to charged shots, which fire slowly and don't work on bosses; also, to hit bosses, you have to aim at specific weakpoints. In this fight, auto-aim is on for everything, and so helpful that I could be anywhere on screen and always hit the boss.
With Star Fox 64, the laser is semi-automatic and each shot feels like it does damage. In this fight, the gun is fully-automatic and hits about as hard as an airsoft.
With Star Fox 64, there are additional attacks such as bombs and charge shots; in this, there was only the peashooter, at least that I could find. None of the other buttons appeared to do anything.
With Star Fox 64, boss fights, especially towards the end of the game, tend to require quick dodging and careful timing to not get hit. Most attacks in this boss could be avoided by "listing lazily to the left" or hugging the bottom of the screen. Pretty much, as long as I didn't stay completely still, I wouldn't get hit.
With Star Fox 64, I do not recall a single fight which involves most of the screen being covered, preventing me from seeing oncoming attacks.

Perhaps these differences make it more accurate to the source material, and I also realize that additional gameplay mechanics such as those I pointed out may require more code and graphics, which don't exactly grow on trees. In this case, my mind was blown at the start, but by the end I was burnt out because, for all three forms of this boss fight, all I had to do was hold down the fire button and move with little haste.

Spoiler: Thoughts on the normal final boss

Yep, that's a boss fight. Spritework is solid enough for SRB2, and the gameplay is good. The one flaw is that, to actually see where I'm sidestepping to avoid attacks and keep the boss in view, I had to mess with the camera cvars a small bit. Once I did that, it still took a good number of practice tries for me to find good approaches.
Nothing of the challenge felt particularly unfair. Aside from more easily dodging one attack, playing as Tails proved to be disadvantageous in the fight, but nothing that couldn't be overcome with practice. Overall, this was a far more enjoyable fight than the true final boss.

Spoiler: Thoughts on the special stages

Greenflower Grove Zone - I have a copy of Sonic 3D Blast for the PC sitting on a shelf right above my monitor. I have not played it in a decade at least, and when I did play it I was underwhelmed. And yet somehow, this stage triggered nostalgia for a game I can hardly remember and made me want to give it a shot once again. If that's not a sign of excellence, I don't know what is.

Tropical Island - In a word, unmemorable. The gimmick of a slowly draining energy bar rather than rings and more than enough time didn't alter the experience. The boss fight at the end has a very hard to dodge attack which can hit you multiple times per strike, bringing your energy meter to zero in seconds. I figured this would be next to impossible to beat, until I inadvertently trapped the boss in a corner and cheesed it to death.

A Minesweeper Field - Too easy for me. But then I'm actually good at minesweeper. It's a faithful recreation of the game, and I see no real way it could be improved over its current form while staying within SRB2.

Unknown Temple 1 - Instructions unclear at first, but after a couple of tries it was no big deal. It's just a maze with buttons that open new routes, which really wasn't so impressive compared to standard levels. I think there was a boss at the end, but I have no memory of what it was and I beat it just yesterday.

Shade Mountain - The stage does a very poor job of highlighting the actual path to take.
So much so, that I ended up finding the emblems more easily than the actual route to take.
I lost the route multiple times throughout, and got so frustrated I cheated to beat it.

Soniguri - Not as hard as I thought it was. With a little practice, it's possible to not get hit through the main level. However, no amount of practice will enable you to reliably dodge the boss's attacks. This however proves to be a non-issue, because if you enter the boss at full health, you can easily forego dodging entirely and brute force it.

Highly Responsive - Instructions unclear. I figured out soon enough that it's a breakout type game, but you have to manually knock the ball up, and getting hit by the ball is how you die. Throwing talismans is also a great way to die and ends up never being worth it. All difficulty in this, including in the boss fight at the end, is obliterated by simply spamming spin. Occasionally with this tactic the ball is knocked straight up repeatedly and your position has to be adjusted slightly, and obviously you shouldn't stand still directly under the boss.

Spoiler: Thoughts on the writing

Conglaturations! You haev just one the internetz1!11!
Yeah, it was great satire of terrible writing, and almost certainly is better than any serious story you could have wrote, and far better fitting. I can think of no improvements.

Spoiler: (Negative) Thoughts on selected stages

Abandoned Airbase - It took several minutes for me to even figure out what the gimmick was. Once I did, it took quite a while to even find how to reach the buttons needed to open the route to the exit. It took over twelve minutes, and I found the emblems more easily than the exit. Now that I know where to go, it'll probably last about one minute, maybe two. That being said, the art design of the stage and what you've managed to do with it is very technically impressive.

Fort Nitrate - I got stuck at the same spot other people did. Actually, I got stuck past that;
I got up to where I needed to go, but I only found the zoomtube exit there and didn't realize I needed to go up even further. Maybe add an up arrow sign somewhere. Still, implementing the gimmick of the stage is clearly an achievement in itself.

I still have yet to finish everything Subarashii has to offer, and I still look forward to doing so. That I haven't said anything on a stage or element means I didn't find a glaring flaw in it, and should be taken as a complement.

It is kinda sad to say, but I didn't have as much fun with this installment of the SUGOI series as the first, however I did find some things to enjoy within the poor performance of my windows 10 laptop. Because of this, some levels I couldn't play at their best.

Horrible PC's aside, it was a fairly fun experience. It took me at least a minute to figure out I had to JUMP into the paintings like Super Mario 64 to get into them when I first booted the game up.

The levels were a something I had to get used to as they seemed to use slopes in ways that didn't always work well. Sometimes they worked, while other times they became more of an annoyance as some levels required you to use slopes to progress. That being said, I would've liked to see at least some levels without them, or at least use them with disabled slope physics.

While on the topic of levels, I didn't know about the Emerald Stages until I unlocked all the areas, barring the bedroom and the gallery. It was a nice choice to have a separate area for the levels that award the Chaos Emeralds, as it makes it much easier to get that true ending. However, I personally found the stages to be quite difficult as they are the only ones with certain gimmicks, some of which were not properly introduced. A future fix could be to have an easier level for each stage to act as a tutorial.

As for the Ending...

Spoiler: Normal Final Boss

The Normal Final Battle was quite challenging, though I expected something along the lines of an anime boss. Not that it's bad, it was very creative. However, I must say that some of the regular bosses were harder.

And for the TRUE Ending...

Spoiler: True Final Boss

I was surprised to see the boss use the Final Battle from Kirby:
Planet Robobot with the entire fight nearly recreating it in SRB2. An issue of mine with the battle is that you can just hold down the jump button to shoot the boss and only have to worry about dodging the incoming attacks which made the whole thing become tedious very quickly. I would be a neat idea to give the boss a shield that it can bring up to reflect the shots back at the player, to make things slightly more interesting, or at least have a cooldown for your standard shots.

Is it my shitty system or Roasted Ravine really lags af. It's the most severe lag I've ever seen in SRB2.
Anyway, Cool level though. It's b/z of these new things (devs' efforts) that I play SRB2. They always bring something new.

(Mod will be appreciated in more detail after the 'Emerald data not saving' problem is fixed. -_-

eh... many people have this issue on this map. I haven't seen anyone played the map at a silky smooth 35fps. For me i played it at a constant 12fps which was terrible but manageable to finish.

Mine did. I had absolutely no issues with the level. Except for the painfully hard roasting mechanic. Plus I kept getting lost at the last signpost, and spent a bit too much time in someone's empanada shop.

SUBARASHII was a pretty fun experience, all things considered. Though, the Special Stages I could've cared less for (I beat only one out of six, but luckily I had several tokens on hand), but it was alright.

Some of the levels though (Abandoned Airbase, Roasted Ravine, etc.) got way too long, drawn out, and were overall directionless. They needed to have their length cut in at least half. SUGOI's levels were mostly confined and of decent length, so I really don't know why the level lengths got boosted here.

Also that plot is the greatest thing of all time and the True Final Boss was quite spectacular as well, if a bit lacking.

Okay, so I've gone through and beaten all the levels, and I must say I had a lot more fun with this than I did with SUGOI! The emerald stages were a genius idea (though that seventh one can kiss my arse), and I loved that you encouraged everyone to include emblems in the levels. It made exploring and replaying them that much better. I felt that the emerald tokens were a bit sparse (except in Propulsion Peaks lol), and I imagine it's a lot worse in multiplayer where there would be competition for them—but that's probably the fault of the level designers themselves for not including them. I also found that some maps suffer from a reduced framerate in OpenGL, which I think is mostly a result of the sheer number of thinkers all the Lua scripts run through every frame—and of course, this is multiplied when on a map that actually uses those thinkers, such as Roasted Ravine—but there were definitely a few maps (I'm looking at you, Snow Summit and Polluted Polis) where I couldn't identify the cause of the lag. Optimizing for OpenGL isn't THAT important but perhaps you could encourage map builders to test it anyway? On that topic though, the support for OpenGL that SUBARASHII includes is really really good and greatly appreciated. Thank you, frozenLake. <3

Salt already knows but I ran into a bug where the end credits glitched out and refused to let me advance past the "Thanks For Playing" screen, and therefore also from unlocking the Gallery. Here is the Lua error I received prior to that bug and a couple of gifs recording the incident. (Please note there are spoilers in these screencaps, so don't watch if you're trying to stay clean—but if you've beaten the game, the gifs are very amusing!)

I've played through the entire game (Still have to get the emblems, but eh...) and found it to be quite an enjoyable experience but I do have a few things to say.

Spoiler: Spoilers

Shade Mountain - I have to agree with ForgiveThisNewb, the correct path to take isn't as obvious as it could've been, and the lack of instructions left me not realizing that you suffered ring drain throughout the level, nor was I pleased that it took 2 rings at a time which made it insanely difficult for me to keep up even with the bonus rings from the hoops.

Roasted Ravine Zone Act 1 - Oh my god the lag I suffered here was awful! I even tried lowering the resolution to it's minimum and my computer was still suffering horrible lag. I would say this was my computer but I can run games with extreme levels of graphics with no issue, so I'm not sure what's going on with this level. Aside from that I found the gimmick of this level interesting if a bit too punishing when a minor mistake was made. I thought Waluigi's Taco Stand was hilarious though, so that kind of made up for the pain I endured.

Star Genesis Fight (True Final Boss) - I really loved the Ristar reference with the nod to his original design and how he was originally intended to be Sega's mascot. While I found this to be overall an easy fight, my main issue came from my inability to correctly gauge depth in video games when it comes to objects flying towards my face, so I had a hard time dodging some of the laser attacks that he loves to spam near the end. I think the lack of difficulty comes from how you can just endlessly spam bullets at the boss, I would say either adding a cooldown or lowering the fire rate could fix this issue and give the player incentive to think about how they place their shots.

I was also looking through the files and was surprised to see that there were unused forms for this boss which was kind of disappointing considering how quickly this fight can go the way it is now.

Spoiler: A little help for people having a difficult time with one of the special stages

In Soniguri I found that sitting a little above the bottom left corner of the screen during the boss fight made the missiles much easier to dodge which allowed me to focus on dodging the lasers and shooting.

__________________
There should be some sort of witty signature comment here, but I can't think of one right now.

This mod hasn't been hyped for no reason. Fitting maps by so many people in the community and having them all work in one map pack, it must have been a huge project for TehRealSalt, but I also want to congratulate the mappers!

This is one of the largest mods I've ever seen in SRB2, and that's why many maps would easily get just ignored. That's why I want to write shortly (this post is still going to be huge) something about each map in the pack. I don't say I'm a right person to criticize a whole pack like this since I haven't even made maps for years, but I still think the maps deserve to be seen.

Spoiler: Warning, contains spoilers

Spoiler: Before living room

Title screen is one piece of humorous art. So is the intro, got to say. I expected a little sense in the story, but now I feel like it works much better that way. The hub is actually even better than in SUGOI, I think. The style of this works and the space theme feels actually used.Green Flowers 1: What I like in this map is that there are hidden places to explore and area to move, so nothing breaks a flow easily. I think the zoomtube could be a little more visible, so it would be more obvious that the players have to go there.

Spoiler: Living room

Green Flowers 2: I think the underwater part makes this more interesting than Green Flowers 1. This feels also less empty. In the last room outdoors, there are some fish that teleport downwards when the player comes near them. I think it could be fixed by placing the fish properly into water.Holiday House: An emerald hunt map where the emeralds are actually hidden. That's good. At first I thought this map is a little narrow, but I guess it helps you hide the emeralds. The room full of bushes made me actually laugh when radar showed yellow in there.Sunlit cavern: For the outlook, I think this would need more textures or decoration. For the gameplay, there are actually more secret places than I thought at first. The time emblem had some challenge at first, which I count as good thing too.Frozen valley: I might have missed the point of the map, but the emeralds weren't hidden. You rather have to go to the room the radar leads you into. For a positive side, it's easy and fast map for moving around.Steel Valley looks and works the best at this point of playing. The slopes support both playing and exploration of the hidden things. I think trying to reach the hidden places as Sonic is pretty fun. It's kinda easy for Knuckles to enter Sonic's and Tails' route. Is it intentional though?Holiday Hill: You're forced to use some things outside of the regular platforming, which isn't a bad thing at all. In one point I thought I'd be doing a secret route as Sonic, but it was actually an upper route to finishing.Bubble Tides is one of the most beautiful NiGHTS map i've ever seen. Got to say the way you do it is also creative. I don't even notice when the map changes, which is probably what I like the most. I sometimes miss the goal from the ceiling, especially I did on the first attempts, when I didn't remember it's there. It might be just my stupidty, but it feels easier to notice it from ground. Not a big deal once you learn it's in the ceiling. Definitely one of the maps you remember after playing this mod, so good job with that.Green Flowers 3: Not sure if I like the uage of slopes, but what I like in this map is that there are secret places everywhere and they are expanded to an alternative route.

Spoiler: Dining Room

Green Flowers 4: Chasing the bounces is actually fun as Sonic. It would still be nice to know when the boss is invincible by the flashing sprites or something.Plastic Factory is kinda adventurous in a way. There is variation both in environment and playing, and no place is left without something to find. I don't know if it would need bigger, different or more textures, but I think I care more about the gameplay.Funky Headquarters: I think this looks pretty good for a 2D map. Nothing to complain about playing this map either. Actually the only thing I'd change is that the round disks could easily have more vertices. Also, there's this box placed in a buggy way: Sapphire Frost: A lot of area for moving, and a lot of places to see and find. Pretty often the huge areas feel pretty empty. Sometimes the igloos still fix it. Nice usage of the slopes in the upper route after the first tunnel, btw.Polluted Polis: A 2D map that I can call stylish. The gameplay was actually more interesting than in SRB1 remake maps and creative in some parts. The only thing I'm not a fan of is the deep goop. Especially when you'd have to escape it using the fan.Night Temple: The obstacles aren't that flowy to play, which I guess, is because they are pretty small in size. Nothing else to complain about though. The atmosphere works in this map.Crimson Castle: This is hard to review, since it's hard to find much good or bad from the gameplay that is basicly jumping from place to place. Positive note for the flow that won't break during the map and the feel of the environment.Ice Cap: At first I didn't find this very special, a little weirdly used slopes in snowy areas. But when I got into the purple cave, that was something new and better. It is actually what you can remember from this map afterwards. I think it's actually a fun part for Sonic players.

Spoiler: library

Dusty Desert 1: There are more things to find than you actually see on the first look. The lava room isn't easy and the floating 1up monitor was almost like an evil challenge put for Sonic players. Anyway, I don't think it's possible for Sonic players to reach that cliff using the crumbling platforms: Abandoned Airbase: This has to be one of the most beutiful maps ever created in SRB2! About the gameplay, sometimes I felt lost while playing this for the first time, and actually even the second time. Maybe the route could be a little more obvious. I found a token and an emblem before the first button. I don't know if it's the map's fault or me focusing in completely wrong things. But when you reach new areas this map starts to feel actually creative, and you are less and less lost. Even the basic platforming differs from just adding platforms that the player has to jump on. Also, the emblems aren't just hidden objects in the map. They have their own areas and routes to them in the map. I'd say this is one of the masterpieces of the mod.Magma Peaks: I don't think I'm a big fan of narrow platforms, that you have to use to get up. Especially with robots on them it's the opposite of flowy play. I felt the same at the end too, even though there aren't any robots on the platforms. It might be just me not liking to stop to wait every third second. The Knuckles' secret works and the emblems took some time to find.Atlantis: I prefer actual challenge than being between robots and getting hurt the least you can. It might be just that I'm not the right player to enjoy it. On a positive note, the elevator gives some challenge for the hidden emblem hunters.Snow Summit: You've made the upper area with the secrets a whole other map to explore. I think this really succeeds in that purpose. And the other parts are merged by more than one route as well, the routes going above, under and through each other. I think this map is more special than one would notice on the first time playing this.Twilight Grove: I didn't even know a jungle can look like this. One big success in the atmosphere. The gameplay isn't bad either.Mount torval 1: I like this map in the places where the platforms are far enough from each other. There the platforms don't break a kind of a flow while player would have to stop to reach the next platform or spring. I guess this has purposally some adventurous feel of the Sonic games, btw.

Spoiler: Ball Room

Mount Torval 2: This has some more of the adventurous feeling than act 1, maybe because of the lava around. I think the obstacles are more interesting anyway. There are two places I have to criticize though. One is the wall that you have to spin under and then jump immediately. It's kinda hard to notice the jump if you don't know about it, and even harder to react if you have any speed. Another place is in the room right after it. I don't think Sonic has any way to escape the lava? Two minor things, but wanted to point them out.Fort Nitrate is something you won't forget once you see it. Player can know they have to use the bombs even if they would never have seen one. Also, I like it how it becomes more and more challenging to use them. Also, the last indoor room is probably the most fun of the challenges in the map. At first you have to figure out what to do, and then is the execution's turn. The secrets aren't obvious either. That one got me, I still haven't found the right one.. xD Anyway, something that really stands out in this mod.Mix It All Together ! I've talked something about adventurous maps, but this really brings it to the Sonic games' level. There are just minor things I'd criticize, like Everything being pretty narrow, and a camera tilting pit under the quicksand. (And the few invisible walls, but it's just personal to not like them) Anyway, this map works up to its name. There's variation by mixing it all together.Steaming Towers: I think the feel in this map works. Suddenly I start to like steam jets. It took a while to get how to get the emblem on "the path you didn't take", but anyway, it's almost up to luck to find the SUGOI easter egg.Sundial Veld: At first I though this would be a grassy map platformer with something little to find, but actually the cave brings a nice variation this needs.Leaps of Faith: I've said I don't like narrow platforms where you have to stop to get soon to another narrow platform, but when the platforms are this far away, and the dangerous jumps are the theme of the map, it's actually a challenge I've been afraid to hope for. Suddenly it becomes fun. You do crazy jumps to survive, and there's a whirlwind shield to reach the upper routes and do even more crazy jumping around. I'm surprised to see something like this and as surprised to enjoy it.Palace Peaks: I think the slopes are used in a fun way in this map. Sometimes you have to use them to reach the higher ground, for secrets or completion. And there's more than one whirlwind shield, so you'll surely get to use one while moving around in high places.

Spoiler: Bedroom

I'd say the quality of the levels in bedroom is damn high, and that's why it's really worth getting the 45 emblems, even though you get most of them automatically by just completing the previous levels.

Roasted Ravine 1: This place is beautiful, and the roasting idea is something original. I like new kind of challenges in this game, and this map surely offers them. It's actually crazy how you can make a death of roasting in the sun look funny. Anyway, as many here have already said to have this problem: this map was pretty laggy for me. The FPS was about 12 plus-minus 5 until I switched the resolution from 640*400 to 320*200. That doubled the FPS and playing was okay again. Anyway, another map in the mod that really stands out.Propulsion Peaks: This works much better than Magma Peaks. There's area to move at and the springs actually support a kind of a flow. Despite the length of this map (you can complete it in 10 seconds if you know what to do) These single rooms contain more secrets to find than most of the other maps in the mod. You also haven't only put some secrets around, but extended them into alternative routes for other secrets. Guess what map became the token farm when trying to beat Highly Responsible.Pipes of green: What have you turned SRB2 into? This felt more like a piece of surrealistic art than a game map. Not that it's a bad thing. The horny bots, pipes of green and anything around actually makes me actually forget what it is actually like to beat the level. The creature at the end actually seals that side of the map.Empty Sanctum: The look works and the foot emblems are fun to hunt. It actually took a while longer than I'd like to admit to find the emblem "for eggman statue lovers". Sure the NiGHTS gameplay also worked. The only thing I'd criticize is that the water hurts you. It doesn't look like it would. Not a big deal once you learn it hurts, but still got to say it.Illumination Aerie: You haven't only made the outdoor environment look unique, but even the indoor factory, or what ever metallic place it is. I won't let you go with only style points. The gameplay in the map is also fun. Outdoors you have to use the slopes over pits both to advance in the map and explore anything. And indoors the platforms give this some more originality, since it feels much crazier to jump on the horizontally than vertically moving platforms.Roasted Ravine 3: The ideas from act 1 have been succesfully taken into the boss. This is one of the times I'm actually curious to see what Eggman can do with the Egg mobile. What I really want to praise is that this doesn't feel forcefully made at any point, like boss fights sometimes do for me. I'm not sure if the time challenge is a good idea since the the possibility to get it is pretty RNG based, if I'm not wrong.

Spoiler: Ending

Damn, the sky works in this map. And the boss' moves have to be the smoothest I've ever seen in Doom games. I'd say this is pretty easy for the ending boss since all you have to do is to dodge all you can and collect the rings you lose, even though later I found out getting through the boss without getting hurt isn't as easy. In the story Shadow's role is relatable, even though the story doesn't make much sense. It didn't disappoint!

Spoiler: Special stages

The special stages are made up to the name special stages. They all offer something new to the game and I'd say these are my favorite part of the pack. The stages are actually challenging and different enough to require the emerald training thing, which I don't think is bad at all. Just nice to have some challenge. After finding out about special stages Shadow's shop actually started to feel like a trap where to lose some tokens though.

Greenflower Grove: It took me a while to get what to do, but when you find out it suddenly turns from a puzzle where you're stuck into a relaxing map to play.Tropical Island: At first it scared me to notice how easily the energy gets down, especially in the boss phase. Not that it's a bad thing. Special stages should be possible to lose at.A Minesweeper field in SRB2? Not a bad idea. At this point I was glad to have playerd minesweeper before.Unknown temple 1: I don't know if anyone can complete this on first try, at least not without luck. I guess you're supposed to have unlocked emerald training at the point of reaching this map though? If so, this is actually well made for its purpose.Shade Mountain: I think there could be some kind of a tutorial what to do in this map. It took some attempts to figure out you have to keep space pressed down for speed. Then some attempts to figure out you actually have to complete a track instead of collecting the hoops. It might be just me being too stupid or focusing in completely wrong things. After you know what to do, this is actually a nice chalenge, and later I was motivated for the ring emblem, which isn't easy either. This isn't very forgiving, which I like in a map you have a training room for. The outlook rocks by the way.Soniguri: The challenge in this map is not what to do, thanks to the introduction. Instead the bigger challenge is to get how to make it, which is something I like. At first you have to get how to get to the boss safely and then how to beat the boss.. let's say safely enough.Highly Responsible For Hedgehogs: For me this is the real challenge and boss fight in this mod. It took much longer than I'd like to admit to first complete this at emerald training, and probably the same amount of time with the tokens. Even though this is completely another game that has nothing to do with SRB2, this really deserves a medal for being such an addictive masterpiece and something new to do with Lua. I wish this isn't skipped by anyone by an emerald in Shadow's shop. Beating this is really worth it. Then you can feel like you have really deserved the last emerald.

Spoiler: True ending

This is one of the best made parts of the mod from the start cutscenes to the fight and after it. Know what? That line made me laugh out loud. The boss itself feels pretty original and took a death on the first attempt. The last phase surprised me, btw. That is one of the parts where you feel like you're in some real action. The cutscenes afterwards, again just don't disappoint.

I'm not sure if it's the mod's or game's fault, or just some bad luck, but after beating the true ending the first time I didn't get the emblem, I was also playing in an empty map at the same time I was viewing the credits, which never ended, but got stuck in "Thanks for playing!"

Spoiler: Other stuff

Deleted Domain: I'm surprised how the maps fit together so well. Generally I'd say the maps are flowy quality content and I'd like to see some of them in full size some day. Actually GamingReloaded probably had some job merging them and making it actually look cool. The music stands out, btw.Custom minesweeper: At first I thought I'd rater just play regular minesweeper with custom settings, but then I saw a server hosting this map. It has to be the only time I've seen minesweeper played online, so this isn't acually unnecessary.

Sorry for a long post.

I've had a lot of fun playing this mod and I still have emblems to hunt. Thanks for TehRealSalt and everyone else for making something like this!

Btw, does somebody know if this gets the official support on records.srb2.org as SUGOI 1 got?

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Last edited by Ors; 07-31-2017 at 09:41 PM.
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Star Genesis Fight (True Final Boss) - I really loved the Ristar reference with the nod to his original design and how he was originally intended to be Sega's mascot. While I found this to be overall an easy fight, my main issue came from my inability to correctly gauge depth in video games when it comes to objects flying towards my face, so I had a hard time dodging some of the laser attacks that he loves to spam near the end. I think the lack of difficulty comes from how you can just endlessly spam bullets at the boss, I would say either adding a cooldown or lowering the fire rate could fix this issue and give the player incentive to think about how they place their shots.

I was also looking through the files and was surprised to see that there were unused forms for this boss which was kind of disappointing considering how quickly this fight can go the way it is now.

Spoiler:

The depth was an issue with srb2 itself (perspective correction feature would have fixed the issue), so I had two choices on the horizontal bars:
A. remove and replace for something less interesting or
B. keep it and slow them down since they originally went 4*FRACUIT faster
I went with B in the end and lowered speed further and forced the map brightness down to 196, because software lights and darkens objects the closer or farther they are from the screen
Also I intended it to be easy to beat due to the perspective and blockmap refusing to give correct collision boxes, I really hated the way it originally played at the start
Needed to clarify

So I got the Chaos Emeralds and obtained both endings, and I loved this mod from beginning to end. The shop dialouge was very amusing, and having different dialouge when playing as Shadow himself was a nice touch. From the large chunk of levels I played, they were all rather enjoyable, though the use of slope jumps could have been turned down just a bit. The hub was fun to explore, and the emerald stages were all well designed, even if I had to go and buy 4 out of the 7 emeralds because I sucked at those stages.

Spoiler: Regular Final Boss spoilers

The final boss wasn't that hard once you get out of reach of his attacks. The ending, of course, was hilarious and well done. The Final Tower's music and aesthetic have to be my favorite parts.

Spoiler: True Final Boss Spoilers

This has to be my most favorite level in the entire pack, mainly because I'm an absolute sucker for Kirby: Planet Robobot and it's final boss. The whole thing was a blast to play, and Ristar's death animation and game over theme in the True Ending were nice touches.

Spoiler: Use noclip in the hub!

and yes I did use noclip that one time to get outside the manor and that level with 5000 crawlas was amazing in it's own laggy way

I have yet to gather all the emblems, but I definitely had lots of fun!

Just finished the game. I think overall the pack was pretty enjoyable, there's several levels in here that certainly stand out, the boss fights and emerald stages being overall well made. I think when looking at everything, my own concern is some of the emblem placements and the like, some of the maps didn't sit right with me, and some other issues that could be fixed in a future update (as was done with SUGOI if I recall correctly).

I'll go ahead and make some minor comments on certain aspects to be a little more in-depth. Will pick my favorite out of a selection, but it doesn't mean I disliked the others, mind you.

Spoiler: Hub

The hub looks good, the store is an interesting idea, and overall feels more polished than SUGOI. I think my only concern on the hub itself is basic emerald token saving, but that's remedied by an upgraded .exe, so its not much to really say. Having a music test is nice since previously in SUGOI I wanted to know where some music came from or who made it, its a nice addition.

Spoiler: Living Room Levels

Green Flowers Zone 1-3
Hedgefox already commented on this, but I will say they are short, simple, and fun. Its just that they're hard on the eyes, mainly odd skyboxes and some jarring texture changes. Emerald Token spot in 3 is slightly mean but obtainable.

Holiday House Zone
Fun, simple, short. Well, maybe too short. Would like to see a more expansive emerald hunt level.

Sunlit Cavern Zone
Not bad. Wish I didn't try to use Amy so much, this level was impossible without peelout. Kind of a start of a slope mania trend. Visually kind of eh? But didn't really stop me from liking it.

Frozen Valley Zone
Nice music. REALLY short. I swear there's only four locations for the emerald shards, I burn through this level really quickly, a little too quickly.

Steel Valley Zone
Can't go wrong with the music, and the stage looks great and feels great. Save the bees. Hate those things.

Holiday Hill Zone
One of the many christmas levels. Pretty good, nice music. Also, I saw what you did at the end.

Bubble Tides Zone
Not a fan of Nights stages. But its a bit different, I'll give it that. Looks nice.

Overall they're very good, fun entry levels. A great fallback to the future frustrating levels to just relax and go through. Steel Valley is probably the best out of here. Stupid Techno Hill music...

Spoiler: Dining Room Levels

Green Flowers Zone 4
Interesting fight, not too hard, but interesting. Not too many boss fights in the pack (I imagine because people will want to see custom bosses and that requires lua knowledge, good work on that also by the way) but its good.

Funky Headquarters Zone
Cute little 2D stage, gimmick was interesting. A bit short but still nice.

Sapphire Frost Zone
Nice music, good level design. Found the collapsing floor that only collapses when you spin, but you put enemies in the way to make players do it, to be funny. So troll worthy.

Polluted Polis Zone
Oh lord, where to begin. First is that the level is really laggy. I imagine an update can fix it, which will fix most of the issues. The later is robo hoods. I don't know how you pulled it off, but those projectiles might as well be invisible on this stage. And the water hurts you but all emblems are in the water. I don't think you can really fix the background in a really quick manner, but the lag is certainly possible to fix. If that's done this level will be good enough to play once in a while. Until then I tend to not pick it.

Night Temple Zone
Great music, interesting level design, miniboss surprised me. That last ramp is not very friendly to Amy but its not like I'm expecting people to make levels work around her. Otherwise its a fun jump. Actually going to play that music right now.

Crimson Castle Zone
Fun, level design is nice. I'm reminded of Castle Eggman. Its like that but with lava. No hints for the emblems is pretty bad though, there really should be some even if you feel they are easy to locate.

Ice Cap Zone
Its nice. A little short, the platforming at the end is really tricky. Enemies on platforms is always tricky since in this game if you bounce on an enemy you basically shoot off into the abyss. That or you try to jump up and since the enemies home in on you they hug the wall so they hit you and you die. Probably intentional here.

Collection of levels are good, save Polluted Polis, but I think with an update it'll be alright. Night Temple is probably the best out of the lot of them.

Spoiler: Library Levels

Mount Torval Zone 1
Its not bad, though I don't get the initial reason for putting a shader on all of the characters. Is it a bug? I'll go with a bug. Also, the death pit a few fracunits after a goal is kind of rude, would give the player some sort of warning beforehand, especially since it was right after a section where the player was free to run around.

Abandoned Airbase Zone
I like the level concept, very puzzle-y. One or two of the emblems were a little too cryptic for me but I figured it out eventually.

Magma Peaks Zone
Its...alright. Kind of short podoboo placement was fairly rude. The only emblem that requires Knuckles was super cryptic. Honestly the clues in general were pretty hard to read.

Atlantis Zone
This level is really pretty and has a good atmosphere, I like it a lot. That emblem is kind of jarring in comparison though.

Snow Summit Zone
Nice music, level has good design. That sloped platforming section though...it'll be the death of me. Later, not now, it wasn't ergregious here.

Dusty Desert Zone 1
Design is alright, and its fun going for the exit. Getting the emblems, though, its a bit of a nightmare. You see a lot of "doors" and the emblem hints at a switch, and if you go through the lava section you can't backtrack, so its GOT to be in the first section right? Nope, its in the final section. I think the emblem hint needs to be tweaked.

Its a good collection of levels, though I think previous levels so far have done better overall. I think Abandoned Airbase and Atlantis stand out the most IMO.

Spoiler: Ballroom Levels

Mix It All Together! Zone 1
Fun level. Until you hit the lava section with a death pit. That section is extremely hard, the amount of continues I had to lay into this level for that section alone is way too many. Its the equivalent of hitting a brick wall, as the rest of the level isn't near as difficult.

Steaming Towers Zone
Nice gimmick, fun music. The Knuckles emblem is...a bit much. I swear there's a devwall in there, because you can't grab the walls to stop yourself from the steam killing your glide save one small part of the wall that you can grab. Its tough. That and there's an anti-Amy section (you have to spindash jump through a slit in the wall)...but again, I know its silly to apply mod support. But eh, personal gripe.

Sundial Veld Zone
Wait, this music is from a Sonic game? Its so...strange. But its a fun level, can't complain about that. I will say, though, that as much as I think tall grass looks nice, it can be annoying since you can't tell if your next step is going to be into a death pit (which is what actually happens in the level). I don't think that's the intention here, so I wanted to bring that up.

Leaps of Faith Zone
You'd think this level would be extremely hard, frustrating, maybe on people's bad list. Surprisingly no, its actually pretty fun for what it is. I like it.

Palace Peaks Zone
Visually nice, though a bit of a pain at parts, such as having to bounce on clouds where you aren't in a ball, and then there's a bunch of bombers and bees to just slap you off and kill you. Bouncy platform movement is hard as is, I think. Maybe I'm just bad at video games? Ha. Still, not bad, just some frustrating parts.

Mount Torval Zone 2
Pretty fun, quality is far above Zone 1. I don't think there's any sections that are a problem, really. Though maybe its too easy for this "category"? Dunno.

Fort Nitrate Zone
Interesting gimmick, a bit of golf. Though I have to say I am not really sure what a non-Knuckles character is able to do to complete it. A bit cryptic? Once you hit that really open section with a bunch of exploding cannonballs on the floor, there's a spot very high up with a bustable wall, but I don't think you can break it unless you're Knuckles. I hit that thing with ten bombs and it didn't break so that certainly wasn't the solution. Is there another path? Just couldn't see it for the life of me.

Certainly a jump in difficulty, sometimes to a more Kaizo-y degree, but not that bad. Leaps of Faith is probably the one I liked the most out of all of these.

Spoiler: Bedroom Levels

Roasted Ravine Zone 1
This level is really good. Music, atmosphere, gimmick, all great. Could do without the lag, though. And the sloped platforming section right at the end. And the bazillion Minus who will kill you if the heat doesn't. But fun, a lot of fun.

Propulsion Peaks Zone
Such an odd level. I like it, but its odd. Its very short, but the premise seems to be more of an emblem search than a level. That's fine, actually not a bad idea for a level (almost like a SM64 thing).

Pipes of Green Zone
Wut. About as much as I can say. Pretty short, odd visuals. Seems like a art gallery more than a level. The level design is fine enough though.

Empty Sanctum Zone
I dislike Nights levels but this, I like this. Just enjoyed collecting things on foot. I should make a level like this in the future.

Illumination Aerie Zone
Visually great, level design pretty good. Emblem placement for Sonic? Please no. The best I can gauge is that for one of them you need to buy a whirlwind shield before the start of the level, get through a sloped platform section with red bees without being hit, then use the red spring to get up to the upper parts of the level, and hope that a proper double jump can get you into the perfect position to get into the room where the emblem is. I think this emblem alone made me realize I'm not going to 100% emblem collection. Its an interesting idea but I mean, that can't be the right strategy, can it? Also, there's a hole in the floor at one point, its a small triangle but its hard to miss once you see it.

Quality of levels certainly went up here. Roasted Ravine Zone 1 is the clear winner here.

Spoiler: Emerald Stages

Greenflower Grove Zone 1
I dunno how you made a Sonic 3D Blast stage fun but you did it. Would love to see another one of these in the future.

Tropical Island
Interesting gimmick, was fun for a 2D level. Only gripe is that Eggman can move off the track so its impossible to hit him, and at least with Amy I found myself in a position where I wasn't given the emerald and was stuck in the map until I drowned myself in some unseen water pit to the far right.

Minesweeper Field
Hey, I like minesweeper. Pretty fun. What can I say other than that, save good work on coding it for SRB2. Good work on that.

Unknown Temple 1
Cool idea, though the time is a bit tight. Probably the only one here that one could consider 'normal'. Not that it makes it bad, its good platforming.

Shade Mountain Zone
Also known as "You're Deaf Now Zone" as when you lose the sound might as well shatter glass. Okay, that's hyperbole, but its pretty loud. Is there a way to quiet it down? But other than that its a fun idea, I've seen a few other levels use this gliding mechanic before but nothing like this.

Soniguri
Never played these before, but its a fun shmup. Good controls, no real complaints. Its hard but its an acceptable level of hard. The fact that this is possible in SRB2 is surprising, but I suppose that's lua for you.

Highly Responsive
Speaking of, crazy that this is in SRB2. Fun, well put together. I like that each player has their own "game" to play, that's pretty well done. The simple solution would to have a bunch of people in one section but you went that one step further.

They're all fun, though in some ways I dislike the whole "boot them out of the game" deal, but it IS an emerald stage. Honestly Highly Responsive and Greenflower Grove Zone are tied for me.

Spoiler: Zones which are Spoilers

Deleted Domain Zone
This zone is a lot of fun, great music, cool concept. I don't know the history behind it, maybe some levels didn't make the cut, but this is a neat idea.

Custom Minesweeper
Hey, go one step further and let people make their own games, neat. Insanity mode: nxn board, n^2-2 mines. Good luck~

Final Tower Zone
This boss fight is a lot of fun. Feels like a mix of a new idea and some of Metal Sonic's moves. Ironically I think the Roasted Ravine boss is better, but it doesn't make it bad. Feels like a final boss still.

???
Short but fun, its pretty much the equivalent of the minor stage before the final boss of SUGOI, has that same feel.

Secret Boss
The highlight of the game. A lot of fun, very well put together, good music selection, atmosphere, what have you.

Obviously, The secret boss is the best out of these, though Deleted Domain is in second place

Spoiler: Overall

I think SUBARASHII is a lot of fun and a good sequel to SUGOI. A lot of new features and a lot of levels and the quality for the main sections is higher. Emphasis on main sections here. I would say the hub, ???, Final Tower, and Secret Boss are all high quality, and its like the shell of the whole product, but the insides of that project has varying quality. This can't really be blamed on anyone per se, because hey, its like a community chest, some levels aren't going to be the same standard, and you shouldn't simply kick out a level for that reason alone, so its inclusive. I will say, though, that SUGOI's level of quality was more even; I can't say there's a level in SUGOI I didn't like. In terms of overall play, I'd say SUGOI barely inches ahead despite it not having really well done sections of the game compared to SUBARASHII.

Spoiler: Ideas for Future Titles

Obviously these things are learning experiences, so I'll just summarize what I've said before:

Good Ideas, Things to Keep
Keep that good core quality there, it was a lot of fun. A good spread of gimmicks and straight levels was made here, and certainly keep that, not every level needs some overarching gimmick that you have to do with lua (and its more inclusive; I don't know lua, and many others don't either).

Level placement in terms of progression was great, and keep emblems as a progression tool.

Music choice was superb, I know it probably sounded like a broken record for me constantly saying it but it was really good music, in terms of selection and custom work.

The plot is silly and should be kept.

There's levels here for beginners and experts, and the level curve is pretty smooth.

Bad Ideas, Things to Discard
There wasn't too much level variety in some aspects. Like, there were too many christmas levels (I get it, the subtitle, but it was a bit much). People should make what they like, but should be directed to other themes if one theme is overplayed.

Some sections in the levels were a either bizarre or had mean enemy placement. Enemy placement can be difficult; I'd know, my last level's enemy placement has clear problems but I'm still learning.

Things to Change
There should be more emerald hunting stages. I'm honestly considering making one now, in fact. They should be bigger, more exploration oriented, visually nice. Think of Holiday House, but make it bigger. 2~3 times bigger.

I liked the on-foot option for Nights levels. Perhaps have more of it? Or be done with them, but again, just my personal taste.